My companion made a telescope of his two hands and examined the Nippon Maru.  “You are discharged for inefficiency,” he said.  “You are reporting a side-wheeler for a screw-propeller.”

“There is no signal in the code for such modern inventions,” I retorted.  “I suppose the fog of your practical realism is too obscuring for you to see that clipper just coming in,” I continued, as a full-rigged ship spread its filled sails against the glowing sky of the late afternoon.

“The lady is a bit sarcastic, Billy,” he addressed the goat, “but we’ll examine it.”  Then peering through his telescoped hands again, “It’s the clipper ship Eclipse,” he announced, “built especially for speed, in the exigencies of the San Francisco trade, with long, narrow hull, and carrying an extra amount of canvas.  She has made the trip from New York in three-quarters of the time required by any other kind of craft, and demands, therefore, nearly double the price for freight.”  He looked at me for approval.

“What a whetstone for the imagination the business sense is!” I commented.  “Perhaps if your grandfather owned shares in the Eclipse, you will be able to see the second signal station erected the next year on Point Lobos, just beyond the Fort.  From there a vessel could be decried many miles outside the Heads and the signal repeated by the station here on Telegraph Hill, relieved the inhabitants of several more hours of anxiety.”

“Anxiety is a mild term if one couldn’t hear for a whole month from the girl who had his heart,” he commented.  “It’s bad enough when she won’t write, even with a telegraph and railroad between.”  He was tracing some characters in the ground at my feet, with a stick.  “Thirty-four days,” I made out.

“If you’ve sufficiently recovered from the climb, shall we see how the city looks from up here?” I asked.

For answer he sprang up and assisted me to my feet.  We walked to the opposite side of the park, where the city lay extended before us.

“Imagine a forest of masts here in the bay, about seven or eight hundred; the water laying Montgomery Street beyond the Merchants’ Exchange—­that yellow brick building with the little arched cupola; and wharves running out from every street to reach the ships lying in deep water, every one swarming with teams and men hurrying to and fro.  Connect them with piled walks over the water on the lines of Sansome and Battery Streets and you have a picture of Yerba Buena Cove in forty-nine.  Heap up freight and baggage on the shore, erect thousands of tents on the sand dunes around the edges of a town of shanties and adobes climbing over the hills and you have our miner’s metropolis,” I sketched for him.

“I see it,” he said, shutting his eyes.  “Now a wave of the magic wand and the scene is changed.”  He opened them again.

“The magic wand is a steam-paddy, working day and night leveling off the sand-hills and shoveling them into the bay.  The wharves are converted into streets and many good ships, whose crews having deserted for the mines, being pulled up and used as storage ships, are caught by the rising tide of sand and converted into foundations for buildings.  Such was the ‘Niantic’ at Clay and Sansome.”